Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The SLIFR Poll: It's Not a Comeback, It's a Return

The Siren, as you may have guessed, is having a hard time trying to write about anything in depth at the moment. But here comes Dennis Cozzalio, our old friend from Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, with another quiz: MISS JEAN BRODIE’S MODESTLY MAGNIFICENT, MATRIARCHALLY MANIPULATIVE SPRINGTIME-FOR-MUSSOLINI MOVIE QUIZ. This one had a lot of noir and pre-Code questions that were irresistible to the Siren, not to mention the title reference to something that's ONLY one of the Siren's favorite films of all time. (Dennis, you rogue, was that deliberate? A Brodie-signal, like a bat-signal only 100 times better?) So here we are. Time for some fun! As usual, to avoid one of her spells, the Siren went with the first answer that popped into her fevered brain. If you want to take the quiz, drop by SLIFR and have at it. And the Siren doffs her cloche to friend Tony Dayoub, who reminded her of the quiz by posting his own answers at Cinema Viewfinder.

2) Favorite line of dialogue from a film noir"I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings." 3) Second favorite Hal Ashby filmHarold and Maude. (The Siren's favorite is Shampoo, one of the best movies of the 70s; she's naming it even though Warren Beatty evidently had a great deal to do with the finished film.)

4) Describe the moment when you first realized movies were directed as opposed to simply pieced together anonymously.As she's said before, the Siren's father and his regard for John Ford had her realizing this early on; also, the fact that the name "Busby Berkeley" meant big wonderful chorus numbers.5) Favorite film bookCity of Nets, still.6) Diana Sands or Vonetta McGee?Pass.7) Most egregious gap in your viewing of films made in the past 10 yearsThe Lord of the Rings, I suppose.

8) Favorite line of dialogue from a comedy"You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Clause."9) Second favorite Lloyd Bacon filmAs of last week's James Cagney triple feature at the Film Forum, without hesitation the Siren cites Picture Snatcher. (Favorite is 42nd Street, bien sûr.)10) Richard Burton or Roger Livesey?The most painful answer in the bunch, because the Siren has been immersed in Burton's diaries, and they are nonstop joy, fascination and delight. But the Siren cannot live without I Know Where I'm Going!. Livesey.11) Is there a movie you staunchly refuse to consider seeing? If so, why?Lots, but first thought is A Serbian Film. (The Siren strongly advises her gentlest readers not even to Google that one if they don't know it.) Because why would I? The people who boast about how they can sit through anything, do they believe someone greets you at the Pearly Gates to say "Dude, you made it through Cannibal Holocaust! Here's your door prize!" The Siren considers hard-core images of degradation and sadism to be brain pollution. Not to mention a colossal waste of her precious time on earth, considering she just looked at Lloyd Bacon's filmography and realized she's got dozens left.

12) Favorite filmmaker collaborationThe Siren goes with her first thought: Bette Davis and William Wyler. 13) Most recently viewed movie on DVD/Blu-ray/theatrical?Blu-Ray: The Navigator. Theatrical (not for work): Picture Snatcher.14) Favorite line of dialogue from a horror movie"I never drink...wine."15) Second favorite Oliver Stone filmBorn on the Fourth of July. (No. 1: Platoon.)16) Eva Mendes or Raquel Welch?Haven't seen Ms Mendes in much, but the Siren suspects she'd pick Welch in any case.17) Favorite religious satireViridiana.18) Best Internet movie argument? (question contributed by Tom Block)The Sight and Sound list was good for some fun and games.

19) Most pointless Internet movie argument? (question contributed by Tom Block)Anything in which the words "Lena Dunham" appear. The Siren signed off forever when someone on Twitter chimed in with, "Jean Renoir had a famous artist parent too." Good grief, enough already. Let's talk about Lloyd Bacon!20) Charles McGraw or Robert Ryan?McGraw is one fabulously cool customer, but come on--Ryan.21) Favorite line of dialogue from a western"Plantin' and readin', plantin' and readin'. Fill a man full o' lead, stick him in the ground an' then read words on him. Why, when you've killed a man, why try to read the Lord in as a partner on the job?"

22) Second favorite Roy Del Ruth filmEmployees' Entrance. (No. 1 is Blessed Event.)23) Relatively unknown film or filmmaker you’d most eagerly proselytize forThe Siren is passing on this one only because hell, that's her whole blog, right there.24) Ewan McGregor or Gerard Butler?Ewan McGregor. 25) Is there such a thing as a perfect movie?Intellectually, no. Emotionally, sure there is.26) Favorite movie location you’ve most recently had the occasion to actually visitA few blocks from the Siren's front door, where they were filming The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Oh joy. 27) Second favorite Delmer Daves filmProbably Susan Slade. (Favorite is A Summer Place, although a whimsical argument could be made that Max Steiner is the auteur there.)28) Name the one DVD commentary you wish you could hear that, for whatever reason, doesn't actually existBilly Wilder on any of his greats. 29) Gloria Grahame or Marie Windsor?Love Ms Windsor, but Gloria Grahame.30) Name a filmmaker who never really lived up to the potential suggested by their early acclaim or successIsn't it a shame that Howard Hawks never managed to top Scarface? KIDDING. The Siren points to her sidebar to reiterate that one good movie, for her, is enough. But because she re-watched Force of Evil recently, the Siren will name Abraham Polonsky as a filmmaker thwarted by the tenor of his times.

31) Is there a movie-based disagreement serious enough that it might cause you to reevaluate the basis of a romantic relationship or a friendship?Whenever she's asked this question, the Siren likes to point out that she married a man who dislikes John Ford. Her dissent-tolerance is pretty well established.

Siren, it's so nice to have you back in the classroom, furiously scribbling in your Blue Book!

Both you and Tony responded to #11 with the very same answer I had planned, and though I have a couple of others in mind I still think I'll have to cast the third vote for A Serbian Film when the time comes for me later this week.

But YOU-- you also snatched my answer to #1, which I've complained about to lots of people over the years, many of whom probably chose not to listen. On the occasion of the death of actress Lorna Thayer, who played the beleaguered waitress in Nicholson's line of fire, I got a chance to write about that scene and my feelings about it. Glad to hear someone else bringing it up, especially someone who's spent some time behind the register where "the customer is always right."

And yes, I will admit to slight baiting tactics on the pre-code stuff, but I didn't remember that Miss Jean Brodie was such a touchstone for you. She was simply next on the faculty roster! But no matter-- she got you seated at your desk before the bell rang, and for that I am very grateful!

I am so utterly with you on all those either/ors--they really aren't even subject for debate.

I was hoping that somewhere, in the internet argument area, perhaps, there'd be a question about favorite industry canard, so that you could try to behead the zombie that is "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did except backwards and in heels," but you can't have everything, I reckon.

#2 – Gutman to Wilmer: “I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, it's possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.”

#3 – Being There. Shampoo first.

#4 – I was a tiny lad in the wintry north, watching a film starring (I learned much later) Burgess Meredith. At one point in the movie (I think it was Joe Butterfly but can’t swear to it) Meredith turns to camera, grins, takes off his hat and drapes it over the lens; forever shattering the fourth wall for a hitherto trusting, but thereafter tragically disappointed youngster.

#5 – Otis Ferguson.

#6 – Lena Horne.

#7 – Pirates of the Caribbean (or anything with J. Depp for that matter – and everything remotely Pixaresque)

#8 – “Stand still, Godfrey, it’ll all be over in a minute."

2nd place: The newlyweds in “Barefoot in the Park” She: (Get out!) "Whyn’t go stay at your club!"He: "My club? Three lockers and a handball court! To stay over I’d have to keep winning the serve!"

#9 – It Happens Every Spring. First: Boy Meets Girl.

#10 – Livesey in a walk. Make that a quiet, unconcerned amble.

#11 – See #7 above.

#12 – Preston Sturges/Eddie Bracken.

#13 – Blu-ray Prometheus for the effects – breathtaking.Theatrical? I honestly can’t remember the last time I went to a public cinema – I see everything at screenings. If that sounds elitist or snotty, so be it. I’ve completely lost tolerance for audience noise and the stench of stale popcorn actually makes me ill.

#16 – Unfair question. Racquel with an asterisk (she never went nude).

#17 – John Huston’s The Bible.

#18/19 – Most/Least useful Internet Argument: It’s a draw (like putting a humidifier and a de-humidifier in the same room). Besides, everybody knows the only way to judge a movie good or bad is by how much money it makes (after studio overhead, publicity, prints and advertising etc. etc. in perpetuity…).

#20 – Ryan with another asterisk – he made a lot more movies.

#21 – "Get up! Get up, you scum suckin' pig!"

#22 – Kid Millions. Born to Dance first.

#23 – Anything by Bo Widerberg (except Elvira Madigan).

#24 – Meh… Neither!

#25 – Of course there is. Just like Somerset Maugham’s “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

#26 – I live in Hollywood.

#27 – The Hanging Tree. Cowboy; Jubaland 3:10 to Yuma tied for first.

#28 – I’ll go with Wilder, if Izzy Diamond is also there.

#29 – GG! For, as I never get tired repeating, being the first major American actress to be naked on a Hollywood film set (under the silk sheets in In a Lonely Place). That it was reportedly done to annoy her director - and sometime husband - Nick Ray is entirely academic.

#30 – Bill Forsyth. Local Hero gave me great hope…

#31 – I’ve lost count of the women I’ve dumped because they didn’t get Mo, Larry and Curly. Not because I liked the Stooges that much, in fact I’m rather ambivalent, but because it was the only standard test available to fools of my generation.

I'm glad you mentioned the diner scene, but "Five Easy Pieces" in general is a movie whose greatness is just assumed without much good reason--for damn sure, no good moral reason. Everything in it is rigged to make Nicholson look cooler, smarter, more anguish-stricken, funnier, etc., than whoever else is unlucky enough to be stuck onscreen with him. A special sore point: his takedown of the sourpuss "intellectuals". Oh, my god! If the fish were any bigger in that barrel, there wouldn't be room for any water...

I recently read --can't remember where-- that Miss Jean Brodie is Mary Poppins, as created by Tennessee Williams. Seeing it again 44 years later, I have a lot of sympathy for Miss MacKay, Celia Johnson's character. But, Maggie Smith was brilliant.

1. Personal Classic Moment Manque: "You complete me."

2. "I have to sleep in this room!" Bob Mitchum to Jane Greer in "Out Of The Past."

3. No 2nd/"Harold And Maude" is an all-time favorite.

4. Frank Capra, after seeing "You Can't Take It With You" when I was 20.

7. Never seen a Tarantino film and never will. The sickening violence alone would prevent it.

"..... if the fish in that barrel were any bigger, there wouldn't be room for any water!...." How true! I'd like to see the diner scene re-enacted in a time warp with Tura Satana --in "Faster Pussycat" mode-- as the waitress and Lawrence Tierney --from the 1940's-- in the Nicholson role. The best we'd get is a draw.

Oh, didn't Bill Forsyth do anything wonderful after "Local Hero?" Then, I'll have to go with him, though basically I agree with the Siren about this non-issue.

And I forgot #31! I have a dear friend who LOVED "Mamma Mia," which I suffered through. All I could think of was William Holden's line to Gloria Swanson, to paraphrase, "There's nothing wrong with being fifty, unless you're trying to act twenty five!" And this same friend DID NOT like "To Rome With Love!" Which gives me another fave comedy line (#8): "The father's a mortician, the son's a communist, does the mother run a leper colony?"

#1 The ending scene of It’s a Wonderful Life. Actually, the whole movie. Every scene is so relentlessly and pointlessly noisy throughout that Capra makes even Preston Sturges look like Jean-Marie Straub.

#2 Way too many- “You'd be killing a horse - that's not first degree murder, in fact it's not murder at all, in fact I don't know what it is.”

Or “I'm sorry he didn't die.”- “Give him time.”

Or "I'd like to say I didn't intend to kill her. But when you have a gun you always intend when you have to."

#4 Oddly enough, when I first came across the films of Otto Preminger. Honest.

#5 Probably, Sarris’ The American Cinema. Astonishing, even now, to think that Sarris could harvest so many gleaming apercus, page after page, on profoundly different filmmakers.

#7 Johnnie To, I suppose.

#8 “A girl of sixteen's practically an idiot anyway, so I can't very well blame you for something that was practically done by somebody else.” Else: "The fish was a poem."

#9 42nd Street, which I don’t like much anyway (and should this have been the answer to the first question?). That apart, I’ve only seen Footlight Parade. Maybe I need to see more Lloyd Bacon!

Ah, just another reminder why reading you is such a delight, Siren! So good to see all the love for the wonderful Roger Livesey, and I completely share your feelings for "I Know Where I'm Going". Plus, its good to see affection for "Shampoo"; I can't understand why there isn't more nowadays for it, being the perfect swan song for the 60's. I'm also quite dumbfounded by Lena Dunham's unfortunate popularity and ubiquitous presence. As to "A Serbian Film", what kind of mind actually dreamed this thing up and then actually had the gall to go out and film his "vision"? I saw "Salo", and that was enough, though Pasolini was infinitely more talented than the scum who made this atrocity.

New topic: A Paris friend sent this to me this morning: http://www.kisskissbankbank.com/fr/projects/il-faut-sauver-les-parapluies-de-cherbourg.

If your French isn’t up to it get a loved one to translate it for you. It’s an appeal to help save/restore Les Parapluies de Cherbourg – Agnès Varda can’t do it by herself. Every Euro helps…(For a contribution of just one Euro the site will publish your favorite image of yourself - with loved one - under your favorite umbrella.)

On April 19th here in L.A. I'm going to be chairing a panel on Jacques Demy for the annual "City of Lights/ City of Angels" film festiavl. The occasion is the restoration of Jacques's sublime Bay of the Angels

Hello Siren,Off topic here, but just wanted to let you know I miss you. I need to learn how to get an automated email or something when you post something new, 'cause every day I go to your page, and every day, heavy sigh, no new Siren today. But when you do, ah, it's like a visit from a dear friend. Your writing is such a comfort. I hope the things that keep you from this page are good things in your life.

But the point of the Five Easy Pieces sandwich scene isn't merely the arbitrary pettiness of authority. It's that Nicholson's character is once again wasting his considerable intellect (and anger) on trivial pursuits, as a way of evading his actual challenges.

About Me

"If you live in France, for instance, and you have written one good book, or painted one good picture, or directed one outstanding film fifty years ago and nothing else since, you are still recognized and honored accordingly. People take their hats off to you and call you 'maître.' They do not forget. In Hollywood—in Hollywood, you're as good as your last picture."